


Resident Asylum

by KeithBReal



Series: Resident Asylum [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-09-24 02:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeithBReal/pseuds/KeithBReal
Summary: Harley Quinn hasn't seen her Puddin' in months. Then one day she gets a letter, the kind that could only have come from Mr. J himself, one with two words written on it; "Raccoon City."





	1. One

There it was, up there on a green plate in bright white letters the words, “Raccoon City.” Harley Quinn laughed at it as she gunned her Harley Davidson motorcycle (TM) towards the exit a mile up ahead. Raccoon City! It wasn't as funny as Mianus, Connecticut, or Mud Butte, South Dakota, but it still made her laugh every time she saw it written on a map or a sign.

That was probably why her Puddin' had gone there... assuming it wasn't all some sort of trick. Well... the note she'd received with the name “Raccoon City” scrawled on it had come to her by way of a boxing glove spring-loaded inside a package she'd ordered. Damned thing had nearly broken her nose... so, of course it had been a trick, the kind her Puddin' would've loved, especially after disappearin' like he'd done...

Still, what kinda name was Raccoon City for a serious municipality? Was it overrun with raccoons? Were raccoons like people there, walkin' around in little brim hats and trenchcoats? Was a raccoon the official mayor?

She had a feelin' she knew the sorta place Raccoon City was, the past fifty miles had made it pretty clear. Not a damn car in sight, not even a tractor trailer makin' a long haul through to Nowheresville; Harley felt like one of those biker chics ridin' around after the end of the world with nothing but highways and byways as far as the eye could see. 

She rode down the exit ramp wondering what the hell a byway was supposed to be, gunning the motorcycle's engine as loud as it would go. Her gas gauge said she was about to be running on fumes and so she kept her peepers peeled for a filling station. Stranded on the side of the road outside of nowhere was a bad look for a biker clown dressed in black and red leathers complete with cap and bells.

Another ten miles and she saw it, the city, a black jagged edge just under the purple sky. Maybe Raccoon City had been built by raccoons, it was so damn far from the highway. Harley pulled into the next gas station she saw, a little box building that was mostly windows with two gas pumps out in front beneath a high awning. Last stop before the end of the world, she thought, pulling the bike up next to a pump. Her ass hurt from the long, long ride and she winced on the dismount, casually casing the joint as she did so. There was only one guy on duty, some skinny dude with slumped shoulders who probably wanted to die.

She filled the bike's tank and considered pullin' a good old fashioned drive-off, but then decided it might be more fun to go in and pay. No sense in raising a ruckus just yet, there would be plenty of time for that soon enough, especially if Mr. J was around.

She wasn't wearing her makeup, but figured her leathers and cap and bells would be plenty to freak the cashier out. She grabbed one of those Hostess Sno Balls packages and went to the counter, thinking she'd ask him if he thought the pastries would look good on her tits, but then she saw his face. 

“Holy unpaid sick-days, you look like hell, kid,” she said, dropping the Sno Balls on the counter. 

He stood with his mouth hanging open, his bleary, wet eyes red with spider veins. “jussthegas,” he said.

“No, I want a damn Sno Ball, too,” she said. “Christmas in October, ya know.”

She slipped him a ten. Slowly he gave her change for a fifty. “Bank error in my favor,” she said, skipping out to her bike before the half-dead clerk realized his mistake. She stole a glance at him before speeding back onto the road, doubting he'd live finish his shift. She hoped whatever he had wasn't contagious and briefly wondered if she aught to call someone on the guy's behalf... she then laughed hysterically. 

She desperately needed to see her Puddin'. 

The closer the city got, so did thoughts of just what the hell she was going to do when she got there. She had to admit that she'd been doing a awful lot of magical thinking since leaving Gotham. Her cloudy fantasies of Mr. J rolling out the red carpet for her as she rolled into town were burning off fast. She needed a plan, a hideout, some connections. Raccoon City — Ha, ha! — didn't seem like the kinda place with a strong criminal element, unless one counted bribes to the local Planning Commission, which she didn't.

She was starting to feel antsy again as the buildings came closer and closer together, as she crossed a bridge into the city proper and found herself on a deserted avenue with half the streetlights burnt or busted out. 

There was a diner with its lights on, one of the brightest being a pink neon sign that read “Emmy's,” and “Open.” Harley was pretty hungry now that she thought about it and a pair of Sno Balls weren't gonna tide her over for long. She rolled her Harley into the parking lot and parked it next to a dumpy little Softail, the only other vehicle in the lot besides an old Jeep. She wanted a burger as big as her head. A full stomach would help her think and maybe, just maybe while she was eatin' it her Puddin' would send her a new clue. Hopefully one that wouldn't leave her with a black eye, a dislocated arm, or questions to answer from police. 

She left the cap n' bells in her rider bag, swapped it for a .357 revolver which she left prominently displayed on her hip in case some midwest truck driver with a torture dungeon in the back of his rig got any bright ideas.

Walking into Emmy's she thought the diner might be in fact closed, that or someone had overdone it with the mood lighting. Given the place looked like something the 50s had forgotten to flush, she doubted it. And speaking of having forgotten to flush, what was that smell? She held her nose, looking for a waitress or someone she could say “Pee-ew!” to in a loud, obnoxious voice, but there was nobody to irritate. 

Well, almost nobody. There was someone in the kitchen, moaning and banging into stuff. A lecherous grin spread across Harley's face as she jumped over the counter, hoping to catch a waitress and a cook having sex. She had a bangers and mash joke for just such an occasion and had been worried she'd never have cause to use it. 

“Hey! Whose leg to I gotta hump ta get a dece... what the hell?”

The only one getting action from the cook in the kitchen was the big white door to the freezer. The cook, a wide, bald fella, was up against it pawing at it and moanin', smearin' it in dark blood and other weird juices. A stinkin' wave of rot hit Harley's nose and she almost puked. She almost puked again when the cook turned to look at her. She'd thought the guy at the gas station had looked like death warmed over, but this guy looked like death run over by a semi, left on the highway to bake and ooze. His cloudy, lifeless eyes fixed on her and he peeled himself away from the door to come stumbling towards her, arms up to grab. 

She drew her revolver and shot him between the eyes, blowing the back half of his head all over the white freezer door. He hit the ground like a trashbag stuffed tight with rotten hamburger, the stink of him bursting open making Harley's head swim. 

“I'm gonna hurl,” she said, about to do just that when the freezer door burst open and out came a woman. She nearly tripped over the dead chef, her disgust swiftly turning to fear as she looked down the barrel of the .357. 

“Don't shoot!” said the woman, throwing up her hands. She was young, maybe a sophomore in college, dressed in a red vest and red denim shorts. Her ponytail needed to be retied. Harley Quinn suspected this was the rider of the Softail out front. 

“Don't tell me what to do,” said Harley. “What the hell is this guy's problem? Besides me havin' blown his head off, of course.”

The woman looked down at the dead man and shivered. She'd been in that freezer for a little while, it seemed. “I-I don't know. I just got here, the city, it's... he attacked me, I ran in there...”

Harley lowered the gun but didn't holster it, seeing the woman had a large hunting knife in a sheathe on her belt. Pretty looks aside, she had “tomboy” written all over her. Harley wouldn't be surprised to hear she had a brother in the Special Forces or something. 

“Come on, let's get outta here,” said Harley. 

“Okay,” said the woman, having rapidly composed herself. Harley was wary, but glad. She was in no mood to deal with a screamin' damsel in distress. 

They went outside and stood in the parking lot, looking up and down the street for signs of life. There were none, only distant noises that might've been anything. 

“Who are you?” said the woman, looking Harley up and down under the weird, pink light from the diner. 

“Name's Harley Quinn,” she said. 

“I'm Claire. I came here looking for my brother, Chris. He's a member of the police department's STARS team, I think...”

“I hate cops,” said Harley, opening the cylinder on her revolver to replace the bullet she'd spent. 

Claire narrowed her eyes at Harley, who opened up her motorcycle's side-bag and rooted through it, finding the makeup kit she wanted. Harley had seen enough weird things back in Gotham City that she had little trouble accepting something was off about Raccoon City, something that made paying lip service to normalcy unnecessary and maybe even deadly.

“You hate cops?” said Claire, as Harley covered her face in white greasepaint. 

“Can't stand 'em,” Harley said, enjoying the look slowly spreading across Claire's face. Harley was good at putting on greasepaint fast and even better at getting her domino mask on straight the first time. She finished it all off with bright, red lipstick and grinned broadly at Claire. “What? You ain't never seen a clown before?”

Claire stepped slowly backwards towards her Softail. 

“Seriously, have you seen a clown here before? Besides me, I mean?” said Harley. “I'm lookin' for my boyfriend, he's also a clown, you see. You'd know him if you saw him.”

“You're the only clown I've seen,” said Claire. “Well, goodbye, then!”

“Not so fast,” said Harley, raising the .357. “Seriously, slow down, you're gonna run right into those things.”

Claire turned. Lurching across the parking lot were a dozen people, their mouths and chests covered in blood, faces sagging and dead. 

“Hop on, I'll give ya a ride into town,” said Harley, mounting her bike and starting it up. The engine roared as the people coming towards Claire let out dreadful moans. The poor, terrified young woman was briefly frozen where she stood, clearly wanting to jump on her own bike and be gone, but no longer wanting to be alone in what was clearly a city infested with zombies.

Claire took the more interesting option and jumped on the back of Harley's bike as she rode it out of the diner parking lot and down the long, dark street, speeding past lurching shapes on the sidewalks and darting around the ones staggering between the white lines. 

“Where to?” said Harley. “You know this place, donchya?”

“Not well,” said Claire, shouting to be heard over the bike's engine and the wind whipping past them. “I was going to go to the police station to ask about my brother.”

Harley rolled her eyes. “Didn't you hear me say I hate cops? This might come as a shock, but I got a few warrants out for my arrest, ya know.”

“I don't think that's going to be a problem,” said Claire as they rode further into the city. 

For Harley, it was easy to see what had happened. Something had turned Raccoon City's residence into zombies who were now busy eating the rest of the population. From the look of things the zombies had already won. The power was out on more blocks than not and half of those were on fire or had already burned down. Harley was glad she was on a bike, even if it offered little protection she could weave around car wrecks and zombie picnics, following Claire's shouted directions. Aside from the occasional cries of “Oh, my God!” and “Jesus Christ!” Claire kept a level head in spite of it all. Claire didn't know it, but Harley had thought about it and decided she wasn't going to shoot the girl once they were within sight of the police station. 

“It's down this street,” said Claire.

Said street had been a warzone. Spent shell casings, broken glass, toppled wooden barriers, bodies — Or at least the remains of bodies left inside wrappings of torn clothes — littered the street. Up ahead was the entrance to the Raccoon City Police Department, washed in white floodlights.

“Aw, crap,” Harley said, rolling to a stop in front of a wall of police cars. Her bike couldn't fit past them. On the other side of the barrier was another battlefield, one where the rotting cannibals had fought the law and the law hadn't won. A rotters were still roaming around, many of them half-eaten cops who'd risen after the main group had moved on, hopefully not inside the police station.

“Hang on, hang on,” said Harley as Claire went to climb over the hood of one of the police cars blocking the sidewalk. Harley rooted through her side bag again, grabbing items she had a feelin' she might need. Harley, no stranger to trouble, suspected it was going to be a long night once she set foot inside the police station.

“You don't have a spare gun, do you?” said Claire. 

“What do I look like, the NRA? See if one of yer dead cop friends has one lying around.”

Claire scowled and Harley made a mental note to watch her more carefully. For a normie this Claire person was handling this all pretty well, too well in Harley's estimation. Most people would've been out of their minds by now, riding a motorcycle with a clown through zombie-infested streets. 

Claire's search came up with a shotgun and a handful of spare shells she stuffed into her pocket. Harley had all the items she needed on a little utility belt, a setup she'd cribbed from a certain caped do-gooder more annoying than any cop ever thoughta bein'. The last thing she took was her Louisville Slugger, a heavy one she'd kept tide to the back of the bike. No doubt one solid smack could dislodge a brain from its stem and drop one of these shambling meatbags easy-peasy, no bullet necessary. 

“Alright, let's see who's home,” said Harley, stepping over the corpses littering the grounds outside the police station, a mix of cops and civilians. The double doors of the main entrance were smeared with blood and other nasty fluids, making it look to Harley like some kinda last stand had occurred out here. She thought the doors would at least be locked, but they weren't. 

She'd expected a lot of things to be inside the police station. More bodies, more zombies, more cops, instead there was zilch, nada, nothing. The cavernous lobby was steeped in shadow, lit only by the orange glow of the various exit signs and the blue computer monitors of the receptionist station. 

“Helloooooo!” Harley shouted, her voice echoing throughout the room. 

“Shhh! We don't know what's in here!” said Claire. 

“Cops and zombies, what else would there be?” said Harley, her eyes scanning the room, ready to seize on anything remotely clown-themed. She wanted to believe this was all the sorta thing Mr. J might orchestrate, that he was gonna pop out at any moment and reveal that he'd spent all this time setting up one hell of a joke, but Harley had her doubts. Her Puddin' certainly wasn't shy about killin' hundreds and hundreds of people for a laugh, but a Genocide-by-Joker usually came with a certain sense of style. This, whatever it was, looked like one big, botched punchline. 

Harley twirled her baseball bat while Claire went to the receptionist station and fiddled around with the computer. Claire hit some keys and there was a click, the sound of one of the doors unlocking. 

She let Claire take the lead into what had probably been the cop's break room from the look of the place. Harley gasped when she saw the balloons and brightly colored snack boxes, but her mood dampened the moment she saw a paper placard that read “Welcome, rookies!” Someone was having one hell of a first day on the job, she thought as Claire started looking through the side offices. 

There was a groan from the corner of the room, one of pain and fatigue instead of hunger. “Well, well, well, look what we got here,” said Harley, seeing it was a wounded cop. He was sitting against the lockers holding a blood-soaked towel over his midsection. He stared feverishly up at her, his eyes widening as he tried to bring his gun up. 

“Easy, killer, I ain't no zombie,” said Harley, realizing her facepaint, hat and mask was off-putting at the best of times, probably more-so during a zombie apocalypse. 

Claire came running over, kneeled beside the cop. “It's going to be okay, just hang on,” she said. “What the hell is happening around here?”

The cop locked his gaze into Claire, seizing on her as if the sight of Harley was too much for his sanity to bear. “The STARS... they were right all along... the mansion in the hills, Umbrella, creating...monsters....”

Blood leaked from his mouth. He didn't have long. Harley, still no fan of cops, wanted him to live, to tell them more about these mansion stars and Umbrella monsters. 

“My name is Claire. Claire Redfield. Chris is my brother... have you seen him? Is he safe?”

“Chris... he left... weeks ago...” 

The cop began coughing, huge wads of blood coming out of his mouth. Harley knelt in front of him, leaning on her bat. “Hey, you seen a clown running around here? Besides me, of course? Green hair, white skin, red lips, probably killed a few of your friends?”

If looks could kill, the one Claire was giving her would've taken Harley's head clean off. The cop only looked at her in confusion. “Clowns?”

“Bah, you'd have remembered if ya saw him,” said Harley, standing up and wandering over to the snack table while Claire continued to badger the dying cop, peppering him with questions amid lies about him being alright. 

“You have to go... there are other survivors... before... before the last attack we thought...” he was struggling to breathe, every movement of his chest brought more blood to his lips and, Harley could see, the red pool he was sitting in was rapidly expanding. “We thought there was a way out through the sewer... down in the basement...”

“Okay, okay, don't try to talk anymore. We'll go find help and come back. You're gonna get out of here, don't worry,” said Claire. 

“Are you two done already?” Harley said, picking up a pink frosted donut that didn't have any blood on it. She was still hungry.

Claire stood, looking like she wanted to say something but thinking better of it. “Come on,” she said. “Let's search the other rooms.”

“Okay,” Harley said through a mouth filled with donut, wondering if she'd missed some clue left by Mr. J that would tell her where to look for him. If this was all part of a joke, then it was certainly an elaborate one, even for the Joker to pull off; the kind of thing he usually reserved for the Bat himself.

Back in the lobby, Harley looked to the second floor balcony, then up into the shadows of the ceiling, wondering if the Batman of Gotham City might be hiding up there. No one had seen him in a long time, either... maybe this was some sort of game they were both playing, one she'd finally been invited to join. 

Claire went through a large set of double doors into some kind of processing area. Two zombies, one a cop, came to greet her, groaning hungrily as they raised their bloody hands. “I got this,” Harley said, bringing the Louisville Slugger down on the head of the zombie cop, popping his melon like a... melon. He went down in a heap, as did the other one when Harley swung for the fences and caught him in the side of the head. 

“Double header!” she cried, jumping for joy while Claire stared at her in disbelief. 

“Okay, what is your deal, seriously?” Claire said.

Harley sneered at her. “What's my deal? It's the Night of the Living Dead and you wanna know what my deal is? My deal is this ain't the weirdest thing I've seen this week, so maybe you aughta just relax and go with the flow, ya know?”

Harley twirled her bloody baseball bat as she crossed the room; she'd only partly been lying. Raccoon City was easily the weirdest thing she'd seen that week... the weeks and months before had been pretty weird, too, but a city of full of zombies was kinda out of the ordinary, even for her.

Beyond the processing room was a hallway where some shit had gone down. A stew of blood and broken glass covered broad parts of the floor, the windows had all been broken in, probably by a horde of zombies that had come through and were now ominously nowhere to be seen. Around the bend was the headless body of a cop. 

“That's weird,” she said, pointing at the dead man's neck stump with her bat. 

“How so, relatively speaking?” said Claire. 

Harley cast her a sideways glance, again impressed at how cool the woman was being about all this. “I mean, look at his stump. It's all weird, like his head was twisted off or something...”

Of all the bodies she'd seen that night most still had their heads and the few that hadn't had clearly had them chewed off, leaving ragged, uneven chunks of flesh where their necks should've been. She was no David Caruso, but something told her this little piggy hadn't been killed by zombies. 

With a furrowed brow, Claire looked up from the body, her expression of disgust turning to confusion, then fear at whatever she saw down the hallway.

Harley almost didn't see it herself, but then it dropped from the ceiling where it had been clinging like a fly, landing on all four of its clawed limbs and skittering towards them. Red and skinless, Harley only had eyes for its exposed brain. She could puzzle out what the hell the thing was supposed to be after she knocked its block off with her slugger. 

“Batter up!” she cried, hoping the monster would be caught off guard by its prey charging towards it instead of running away. 

She was wrong and it nearly cost her a chunk of her face. The thing let out a low hiss and out from behind its rows of pointed teeth whipped its tongue. On instinct Harley swung the bat, the rope-like tongue wrapping around the dense wood and pulling her towards the creature. She caught a glimpse of the thousands of tiny, tooth-like barbs all over the thick, meaty appendage before letting go of the bat, wary of being pulled closer to the critter's sharp, swiping claws. 

“Hey! Give that back!” she shouted, drawing her revolver. 

Claire stepped around her and let the monster have it with a blast from the shotgun. Bits of blood and brain matter went flying and the thing shrieked, but didn't die. Enraged, it came at them. Harley fired, her bullet finding its mark in between what would've been the creature's eyes had it been human. Another blast from Claire's shotgun did the job and the creature did a wild jig on the floor before going limp.

“Well that's new,” said Harley, retrieving her bat so she could use it to poke the dead monster. Her investigation revealed little, only that the thing was exactly as it had appeared, a skinless humanoid with claws and an exposed brain. 

“Monsters... that officer back there said Umbrella had been creating monsters. I guess he didn't mean just zombies.”

Umbrella. They made the best drugs money could buy, and some it couldn't. Harley was rather fond of their line of painkillers, good for everything from period cramps to the morning after Batman beat the shit out of you. That the company was creating monsters and zombies raised more questions than answers; for one, where the hell was the market for zombies and skinless brain-beasts? For two, what did any of this have to do with Mr. J's message?

If Mr. J. even sent it, Harley thought, and not for the first time. 

She thought also of leaving the station the way she'd come, hopping back on her bike and getting the hell out of town before things got any worse, or before the army or whoever nuked the place. Claire had already stepped over the dead monster and was on her way out of the hall when Harley decided to follow her. 

Two things were certain, someone wanted Harley Quinn to come to Raccoon City and that certain someone wanted her to think they were her Puddin'. If they were, great, and if they weren't... she had a baseball bat. 

To be continued...


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Harley had seen the inside of more than a few police HQs, and so far the Raccoon City PD building was shaping up to be one of the weirder ones, even without the zombies and monsters. It had to have been a mansion or a museum or something in its past life. For every down-to-earth, all-business room she and Claire searched for survivors there were two more that looked like they belonged in Victorian England or somewheres. Harley didn't think much of it, her attention mostly on the little details, forensic-type clues and hints as to the chaos that had been swirling in the city for what must've been several days now.

In the briefing room, after Harley batted three zombie cops who'd been up to their elbows in the guts of some fat guy, they got the clearest picture of how things had slowly fallen apart. It was all up on a whiteboard in magic marker, how the station had been used as a shelter, command post, and fortress, how the cops had kept all the civilians outta the lobby and off to a side area on the building's east end, near the garage, probably thinkin' if the zombies came they'd come in from the front and the people could get out through the car ports.

Accordin' to a memo stuck to the floor — more of a blood-stained post-it note, really — that hadn't worked out so great. Seemed some dumbass had forgotten to close one of the garage doors, and in came the zombies... Harley could only imagine what had happened then, 'cause it seemed no one had updated the whiteboard after.

Up a dark flight of stairs the police station took on the air of a crappy museum, the kind without dinosaur exhibits. Thick carpet on the floors, paintings on the walls, even a pair of Greek-lookin' statues at the far end, each one holdin' up a fat red jewel that made Harley's eyes sparkle. She thought about takin' 'em, but with all the cops dead and in pieces all over the floors stealing didn't seem like it'd be as much fun.

Past the hall with the statues was a library, a big one considering they were in a police station. With several doors leading out of the room, they had to make a decision on which way to go.

"Maybe we should split up," said Claire. "We could cover more ground that way."

Harley laughed. "What are you, an idiot? Haven't you ever seen a horror movie? 'We should split up,' is what the soon-ta-be-dead ones always say. Go off on your own if ya want, but don't expect to...oof!"

Something hit her hard in the back, knocking the wind out of her and riding her to the floor. Her baseball bat went rolling off towards some bookshelves and she had a split second to cuss herself out for not keeping an eye on the little balcony above them where one of those damn skinless tongue monsters had probably been hangin' out.

There was a dry, snapping noise. Claire screamed and dropped her shotgun. Whatever was on top of Harley grabbed her by the back of the head and slammed her face into the floor, then again, and again until she tasted stars and saw blood.

There was a lot of yelling, sounds of a one-sided struggle. Another dry snap, a whip. Harley felt the familiar sensation of handcuffs being put on her wrists and ankles, then she was hoisted and thrown into an armchair. It woulda been a comfy seat if not for her wrists being behind her back and her nose and throat bein' fulla blood.

She heard voices. Women talking. One of them... she blinked until the stars went away and saw who'd jumped her. Black cat-suit, a whip... talking to Claire.

"Oh, look, a stray cat," Harley said, getting Catwoman's attention. "How the hell did you get in here, little kitty?"

Catwoman turned away from Claire and snapped her whip in front of Harley's face, coming within a centimeter of removing the tip of her nose. "Shut up," said the Cat. "What are you doing here?"

Harley spit a wad of blood onto the floor. Her head hurt like hell and she was pissed, but decided not to let Catwoman see that. She couldn't be sure, but had the impression Catwoman had been in Raccoon City for a little while now. Her boots were caked in blood, there was a tear in the tight cloth on her left arm, she looked tired.

Harley grinned at her with bloody teeth. "Looks like a Halloween party to me. Guess you and I finally got some competition for the costume contest... ow!"

The whip had cracked, severing one of the bells on Harley's hat. It hadn't hurt, but another few inches in the other direction and she'd be out an eye.

"Hey!" said Claire.

"Quiet, you have no idea who you've been dealing with," said Catwoman, glaring at Harley. "I'll ask you one more time, what are you doing here?"

Harley pulled against the handcuffs as hard as she could, not caring if she lost some skin in slipping out of them. No dice, Catwoman had fixed 'em tight, she'd have to shed a finger bone or two if she wanted to pull free. "Where is he? Where's Mr. J?"

Catwoman coiled her whip. "I was going to ask you that same question. Is he alive? Did he tell you to meet him here?"

Alive. Is he alive.

Harley wanted nothing more than to leap onto the Cat and chew her face off, to smash her head in, but she couldn't. Instead she focused on taking long, long breaths, to hone that anger into something useful for the situation.

"Nah, nothing like that," Harley said. "I'm actually here lookin' for my brother, Chris..."

"What?" said Claire. "I'm here looking for my brother, Chris. You said you came here looking for... Mr. Jay?"

"It's J, as in Joker," said Harley, briefly confusing her interogators. "A little while back I got sent a note... all it said was Raccoon City, but the envelope, you could say, had Mr. J written all over it. I ain't seen him, though. Now, what the hell are you doin' here, cat?"

"I'm here to steal something, of course," she said, tucking her whip into a hook on her belt. "Which reminds me, I should be going."

"Hey, wait," said Claire. "You're here to steal something?"

Catwoman stopped and turned. She looked Claire up and down then nodded towards the shotgun lying on the floor. "Grab your gun and come along if you want. Guns aren't my style, but neither are zombies and monsters."

Glancing sideways at Harley, Claire picked up the shotgun. "Um... what about her?"

"Hmm," Catwoman purred. "She'll be safe here. We'll secure a way out, then come back for her. I know about an escape route, but I could use some help locking it down."

Harley almost felt bad for Claire, but didn't think she had the credibility to properly warn the girl about the dangers of associating with someone clearly suffering from clinical lycanthropy and kleptomania, plus whatever the hell disease made someone think a whip was a decent weapon outside the bedroom. And so she kept quiet, watching Claire wrestle with her conscious, watching justification and rationalization come out of the stands to whack Claire's conscious with steel chairs while the ref was distracted.

"I'll come back, I swear," said Claire. "I'll bar the doors..."

"Don't bother," said Harley, and spit some more blood onto the floor. "I'll be outta these cuffs inside the hour and when I catch up with you, I'll shove that shotgun so far up yer..."

"Goodbye," said Catwoman loudly, leaving through one of the smaller doors by the bookshelves.

A cold, blank expression fell over Claire's face as she went with Catwoman, leaving Harley alone in the silence of the library.

Harley waited ten minutes, then slid out of the chair. Catwoman had hit her harder than she'd thought, and she lay on the floor for a little while in pain, not really wanting to catch up the Cat and Claire quite yet. Gingerly, for the cuffs were rather tight, she tucked her legs and brought her hands around to her front. Her hands found the pouch with her lockp... "Oh, goddamnit!" she shouted, shattering the library's hushed atmosphere.

Her utility belt had been emptied of anything that would've been useful in removing a pair of handcuffs. She checked herself over frantically to find out what else Catwoman had stolen, breathed a little easier when she found her revolver and its bullets where she'd left 'em, nearly broke her damn teeth when she figured out what else the Cat had took. Pretty much everything except some cosmetic stuff.

She might be able to use the gun to blow the cuffs off her feet, but figured that was also a good way to get herself shot. A quick look around the library told her she wasn't gonna find anything useful there, so finally she settled on her only other option, hoping she wouldn't have to roll around into too many dead cops before she found one with keys that would fit these cuffs.

She was bunny-hopping across the room when the door in front of her opened and she found herself starin' down the black barrel of a nine-millimeter held by a woman in a red evening dress. There was a long pause between them, neither too sure what the other was lookin' at.

"Hi, I'm Harley, nice ta meet ya. Lovely weather this evening isn't it? Hey, can you get me outta these goddamn handcuffs, pretty please n' thank you?"

The woman lowered her gun, just a bit, as she appraised Harley, who appraised her right back. Harley could tell two things right away, that the woman wasn't from around here, and despite what her tight red evening dress suggested she was no civilian.

"I'm Ada Wong," said the woman in red. "I didn't know the circus was in town."

Harley didn't think she could draw her revolver fast enough to shoot Ada before Ada shot her, not with the handcuffs on, so she just smiled through bloodstained teeth and shrugged. "I don't suppose you've seen another person clownin' around town, have ya? I'm lookin' for this one in particular, green hair, white face, adorable red lips, dreamy bloodshot eyes, you'd know if ya saw 'im."

Ada shook her head as she stepped back in the hall, kneeling by one of the dead cops on the floor. She plucked his handcuff keys and tossed them to Harley, who used them to swiftly free herself. "I gotta use the john, come with?" Haley said.

Ada gave a nod, telling Harley to lead the way. Harley was now convinced Ms. Wong was no innocent bystander, not like Claire had been. She was risking a bullet in her back, but she supposed Ada might value having backup, even if it was from a beaten-up clown.

There was a washroom near the STARS office. It was cramped, as though someone had designed the entire RPD building without a single bathroom leaving some other schmuck to put one in after. Ada covered the door while watching Harley remove her ruined cap and bells and wash the greasepaint and blood from her face. Once she was clean, she tied her yellow hair into pigtails and reapplied the paint, adding a black Clubs design to one cheek and a red Diamond on the other.

"There, who doesn't like a midgame costume change?" she said to her reflection. "So, what's your story? You don't look like a local, or much of a tourist."

"My boyfriend, John, works for the Umbrella company. I hadn't heard from him in weeks so I came here. He was stationed in one of the Umbrella labs outside of town, but he's not there and I heard a rumor there was another lab beneath the city."

"Is that so?" Harley said on her way back to the library to collect her baseball bat. "I'd say I'll buy about half of that story."

"Buy as much as you want," said Ada. "In any case, I could use some help reaching the labs. I think there's a way in through the sewers, but getting there might be a little tricky."

"Through the sewers, huh," said Harley dreamily, slapping the palm of her hand with the bat, letting the weight of it settle her thoughts. "Ya know, it seems like the underground zombie factory is where the real party is after all, so sure, why not? Lead the way."

She now doubted very much that Mr. J was involved here and there was no reason she shouldn't circle back to her motorcycle and leave this ridiculously-named city in the dust, but someone had definitely wanted her to come here and she had a feeling they wanted her to go and check out Umbrella's secret operation, so why the hell not?

Besides, she still owed Catwoman and Claire Redfield a beatdown.

After following Ada Wong through the building for all of two minutes Harley no longer believed any of her cover story. For one, Ada seemed to know exactly where she was headed, for two she was a damn good shot when it came to putting down the zombies roaming the halls and side rooms of the PD. What really cinched it for Harley was when one of the nasty tongue monsters came scuttling around a corner only to have its brains out by three tightly grouped shots from Ada's handgun.

Harley said nothing and twirled her bat as if she were on a stroll through the park. They went through the police station lobby by way of the second floor balcony. This side of the station was a little more in keeping with what a police HQ was expected to be, with interrogation rooms, offices, and storage lockers.

"I already looked these over," Ada said. "There's nothing useful."

Harley wondered how long Ada had been creeping around the police station, and for what purpose if she already knew the way out. Her thoughts were interrupted after they'd gone down to the first floor and through a door that opened into a long hallway, one filled with half a dozen shambling corpses. They'd come in from the courtyard outside, it seemed someone had failed to close the steel shutters above the windows.

"I got it," Haley said, dislodging the brain of the zombie closest to her, a shirtless man with a mop of blond hair. Ada stood back and let Harley work. When the zombies were all left twitching upon the ground Harley took a deep bow, looking up to see Ada was either impressed or bewildered. It was hard to tell which, but Harley was happy with either.

"Take a rest, I don't know how bad it's going to be down there," said Ada, pointing with her gun at the basement staircase, a wide, gray passage into darkness.

"The basement of a zombie-infested building? How bad could it be?" said Harley, skipping down the stairs two steps at a time. At the bottom was a door and she fumbled for the knob. Harley laughed when she saw the basement proper. Slate-gray walls, red emergency lights, and the overwhelming smell of rot greeted her.

"Ugh... I forgot about the smell," said Ada. "This is the area they broke through. I'm guessing most of them are still here... we may have to find another way."

"Nah. It's like cat pee, the smell stays even when the body is long gone," said Harley, who'd disposed of a corpse or two in her time. She figured a zombie was no different than a normal stiff, except for all the walkin' around and moanin'.

It was then Harley heard a familiar sound, one that warmed her clown-shaped heart and all her other clown-themed organs, the patter of dog feet through congealing blood.

The mutts came running around the corner, skinless with dead, milky eyes. One leaped at Harley and was met midair by her bat, the blow knocking its brains out and splattering them all over the wall. Ada's gun went off, a cannon in the tight, concrete hallway. A dog yipped. It had been about to take a chunk from Harley's leg when Ada's bullet shattered its neck, robbing it of its ability to close its jaw with any real force. Zombies might not feel pain, but they still needed muscles and tendons to work properly. The third dog's leap was stunted by more of Ada's bullets and it only hit Harley in the shoulder, knocking her off balance. Ada's gun kept firing, the dogs were all dead. Deader than they had been at least.

Harley got up, now aware that the red mood lighting had been concealing the fact that most of the basement was covered in blood. "That's sad," she said, looking at the dead dogs, using her bat to finish one that wasn't quite done yet. "They're in the arms of the angels now, I guess."

"I suppose," said Ada, as Harley began humming that song from the abused animal commercials; the one by that singer who was super famous years back.

They walked slowly, almost on tiptoes for the while their passage was clear they could hear zombies in the other rooms bumping into things, letting out frustrated moans and pained wails. Harley couldn't tell how many there were in all, only that she wasn't up to tangling with every single one.

"Up ahead, that's where we want," said Ada. "There's a way into the sewers from there."

They were in a wide passage. The door Ada meant was at the end, but a big set of double doors in the middle of the hall caught Harley's eye. Printed on the doors was the word "morgue" in big white letters.

The morgue in a zombie-infested police station... She had to know, she just had to! Harley stepped close to it, put her ear against the safety glass that had been papered over from the other side.

"What the hell are you doing?" said Ada. "Don't go in there... that's where they were putting people before anyone realized they'd be getting back up."

That only made Harley's toes curl as she imagined what it must be like inside the morgue. Were the zombies all standing around packed asshole to elbow? Were they all lying in wall boxes shaking with hunger as they slowly liquefied? Harley wanted desperately to find out, but while she liked her thrills she wasn't suicidal. It also dawned on her that she was hours, maybe days, from a good shower and already was spattered in stinking zombie blood.

"Alright, alright," said Harley, certain she'd heard a moan from inside the morgue.

Ada led the way through the door at the end of the hall. A new smell greeted their noses, dog urine and feces, a welcome reprieve to what they'd been smelling since coming down to the basement. "There, a manhole cover," said Ada, pointing to a corner of the T shaped room where cleaning equipment and odd items had been piled. "We'll need a pry bar..."

"Hey! Who's there?" someone shouted. It was a familiar voice to Harley's ears though she didn't immediately believe them.

Around the corner was a row of cells. Built for people they'd been repurposed for dogs... and now it seemed they held Riddlers.

Edward Nigma stood in the middle of his cell leaning on his question-mark themed cane, dressed in a green coat speckled with question-marks. His derby hat matched his coat and he was sporting a purple domino mask. Nothing weird there, thought Harley while Ada kept shaking her head in a struggle to believe what she was seeing.

"What the hell are you of all people doin' here?" said Harley, strolling up to the bars and running her bat over them to make a clamor.

"Shh!" the Riddler hissed. "You'll draw them in here! I just got the last bunch to clear out by playing dead!"

"Excuse me, but do you two know each other?" said Ada.

"Yes," said the Riddler just as Harley said "I've never seen this asshole in my life."

"Okay, yeah, we've met," said Harley. "Seriously, Riddler, what the hell are you doin' here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," said Riddler, his tired eyes traveling up and down Harley's figure, likely taking stock of her weaponry.

"I'm here lookin' for Mr. J. You seen him? And I swear to god if you answer me with a #$ riddle..." she drew her revolver and pulled back the hammer.

She wasn't sure which had scared the Riddler more, the gun cocking or her name-dropping the Joker, either way he didn't seem in the mood for riddles.

"I haven't seen him, I haven't!" said Riddler, wobbling on his cane. He'd hurt his leg somehow... a sprain or a twist, there was no blood. "Did... did he do all of this?"

Harley holstered her gun and re-thought every thought she'd had that evening regarding that particular question. She must've been pondering for some time, for when she was about to answer she realized Riddler and Ada had been talking for a bit.

"I saw you early on, during the first attack," said Ada. "I didn't see you around after."

"That's because I did the smart thing and hid," said Riddler. "But I found out rather quickly there's no safe place in the entire building, except here. I'd invite you in, but..."

Harley drew her revolver again and shouted, "What the hell are you doing here!? Answer me or I'll blow your knees off!"

Ada stepped away while the Riddler quivered. "I told you! I was hired by Umbrella to test their security systems! They were all puzzle-based... at least they were in the mountain laboratory that was breached... I never got the chance to inspect the labs, so I don't have anything to tell you!"

"You must know somethin'," said Harley.

The Riddler smirked. He was about to tell a fucken riddle, Harley just knew it, and when he didn't she'd blow his smug, satisfied, unshaven... the unmistakable sound of steel double-doors being broken open by a mob of zombies who'd been locked in a morgue was heard, followed by scores of pained wails.

Harley realized two things immediately: One, she shouldn't have yelled so loud as to attract zombies. Two, that there was no ready way out of the kennel area that wasn't filled with hungry morgue-zombies. Ada realized all of this as well and went running for the manhole cover, trying desperately to pull it up with her fingers. "We need a pry bar!" she shouted.

The door they'd come through wasn't up to holding back the crowd of rotting flesh that had come to feast and the lot of them came spilling into the hall, overpowering in their numbers and stench. Harley figured that if she fired every last .357 round she had and nailed a perfect head shot each time she'd still be looking at over a dozen zombies, a lot to manage especially in a tight space. She thought about forcing the Riddler to open his cell and let her in, but the notion of being locked up with Edward Nigma while a horde of zombies drooled over her sounded worse than death.

She was about to go out in a blaze of glory when the Riddler whistled. "Here, use this," he said, tossing Harley his cane. "As interesting as it would be to see you get eaten alive, it would only prolong the... hey!"

Harley threw the cane to Ada who used the hook of the question-mark to pry up the manhole cover.

"Harley! Never trust this fellow's grin. His teeth..."

Harley fired her .357 into the oncoming wall of pale, drooping faces, drowning out whatever dumbass riddle the Riddler was trying to rattle off. A few zombies went for the caged man, stopped by thin iron bars. The rest went for Ada and Harley.

Ada went down the manhole ladder first. Harley almost jumped right on top of her, but saw that in their haste to come and chew the flesh from her bones some of the zombies had tripped, causing those behind them to also fall. Only the lucky and those with undecayed fine motor skills made it through the tumult. Harley felled one with her .357, the second shot she pulled only took off the zombie's face. Moments from being overwhelmed Harley slipped down the manhole leaving the cover to fall over her head.

Her descent into darkness wasn't long. She knocked Ada off the ladder and fell onto the woman when they landed.

"Ow, my ass," said Harley as Ada turned on a tiny, powerful flashlight, illuminating the scummy walls of the service tunnel they found themselves in.

"Are you hurt?" said Ada with a groan in her voice.

"Just my ass, like I said," said Harley, looking up the ladder, hearing the hoard above pawing uselessly at the concrete and iron. "Did you hear the rest of that jackass's riddle? I got, never trust this guy's grin, then somethin' about teeth..."

"Alright, I've had enough," said Ada, getting to her feet. "Before we go another step further, you need to explain to me why you're dressed as a clown and why that man up there was question-mark themed."

Her pretty face was mostly shadow and harsh light, but Harley could tell she was quite serious and wouldn't take no, or some other bullshit for an answer. "Fine," said Harley. "I guess the continuity does get a little confusin' if you're dropped in the middle of it. Tell you what, you lead the way and I'll fill you in on the Gotham City scene."

"I'll bet it's one hell of a scene," said Ada, helping Harley to her feet.

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

“Alright, I showed you mine, now you show me yours. There ain't no way you're down here lookin' for yer boyfriend,” said Harley, using her baseball bat to shove a zombie into another, giving her enough room to whack the third upside the head. 

“I'm afraid that might complicate our relationship,” said Ada, standing just outside Harley's spatter-zone holding her gun ready in case she needed to fire. 

“Maybe I like 'em complicated,” said Harley, giving the same zombie as before another shove, shouting in disgust as her bat tore through the soft, rotting flesh and sunk in just below the rib cage. Ada's gun popped, blood bubbled from between the zombie's milky eyes as it sunk to its knees, toppling over sideways into the dark water that filled the bottom of the tunnel. 

“I prefer to keep things simple,” said Ada. 

“Yeah, well how about we work on keepin' 'em dry,” said Harley, sloshing around in the knee-high water to avoid touching the floating zombies she'd killed. The sewers, thankfully, weren't teeming with corpses like the streets above. A peek through a storm drain had given Harley a glimpse at what the night life in Raccoon was like; a forest of shuffling, blood-caked feet and legs glimmering orange from all the fires. 

“I don't know what the labs will be like,” said Ada, taking Harley's mind off what was happening mere feet above them. “If what we saw in the police station is any clue, then some the creatures from the labs figured out how to escape; we might get lucky and find the place mostly empty.”

“Mostly empty,” said Harley. 

“No doubt something will still creeping around down there, but even then it's our best way out of the city.”

“So you're not gonna tell me what you're really after down there?” said Harley. 

“No,” said Ada, taking them down a broad passage ending at a heavy, white door shining brilliantly in the glow of blue security lights. Squatting in front of the door was a black shape Harley first took to be a pile of garbage bags, that was until it stood up, revealing itself to be a humanoid of at least seven feet in height, covered in tough, leathery skin. It peered at them through a pair of yellow reptilian eyes. 

“Hunter,” Ada whispered. “No, too big... a new Tyrant model?”

“Okay... guess they're crammin' everybody in 'ta this one,” Harley grumbled when she recognize the reptilian monster. “Hey, Croc! Croc, what the hell are you doing here!?”

The man people in Gotham City knew as Killer Croc came sloshing down the passage, dragging his thick, pebble-skinned feet. 

“You tie one on last night or what, fella?” said Harley, hoping against hope that Killer Croc had been down here swimmin' in booze or something and not... 

They bobbed in the water around his legs, the bodies. Arms, legs, heads, pelvises, and ribs, sometimes together most times not. The stink of the crocodile-man washed over Harley; she threw up a bit in her mouth. 

“It's infected,” said Ada, gagging.

“Looks it... aw, hell, sorry, Croc,” said Harley, aiming her .357 at his head and firing twice. She hit him in the face. One went through his cheek leaving a black, bloodless hole. The other chipped off the thick scales above his eyes, harmless. And Croc kept coming.

“Well, I'm runnin' away,” said Harley, bolting back down the passage as fast as the knee-high water would allow, which wasn't nearly as fast as she wanted. 

You don't have to be faster than Croc, just faster than Ada, Harley thought, hearing the woman's gun going off in the tunnel. She looked back to see Croc having some mobility issues of his own. The water wasn't deep enough for him to swim, and being a zombie hadn't done shit for his sense of balance. Her staggered after them, wobbling like Frankenstein's Monster, taking Ada's bullets in his scaly chest and face. Harley was feeling pretty good about his pace, that was until he dropped to all-fours and began loping after them, ignoring the hot lead thundering into his body.

The way Harley saw it, Croc would rip Ada into pieces within a few seconds, not enough time to get ten miles away or find a hidin' spot. The only way to safety at all was right through Croc's lair. It all added up to one thing: Killer Croc had to go. 

Out again came Harley's revolver. She stopped, aimed as best she could at Croc's face, and fired, again and again, most of her shots landing where she wanted 'em, right in the middle of Croc's ugly mug, but a few went low or wide. Too many. Harley had to reload, saw Ada doing the same only for Croc leap at her.

Harley thought the woman was a gonner, but then she dived beneath Croc face first into the nasty water. Harley snapped her cylinder closed with only four bullets in and fired into the side of Croc's head. Only one went low, embedding itself into the thick scales on his shoulder, the others went home just above the weird hole Harley supposed was the man's ear. 

He took two steps forward as if to round on Harley and fell over on his side with a meaty splash. 

“Aw, Croc... what they'd do to ya?” Harley said, reloading her gun, noting she didn't have as many bullets in her pouch as she thought. Despite being low on ammunition, she kept the weapon pointed at Croc's bloody head as she approached him.

“What the hell is that thing?” said Ada, soaked in gross water. She unloaded her gun and did her best to dry the bullets and chamber by blowing on them.

“Hmmm... I would have to say it's a zombified crocodile-man,” said Harley. “Yep, definitely that.”

“Another friend of yours from Gotham?”

“Friend is a strong word,” Harley said. “Let's just say sometimes he'd eat people I didn't like.”

Ada dried her gun out as much as she could and reinserted the magazine, chambered a round. “It looks like he was eating them... that might be what turned him. But what the hell is someone like him doing here in the first place?”

Harley shrugged. “Umbrella hired Riddler to test their security... maybe they hired Croc to actually be the security? Looks like he started taste testin' the zombies. Croc, you yutz.”

They had to hold their noses by the door, where Croc had been feasting. The door had no knob, handle, or bar, only a plastic box that opened to reveal a flat black and white checkerboard surface. There were holes in four of the black boxes, in which Ada fitted four chess pieces dug from her fanny pack. 

“Checkmate!” Harley shouted when the door opened. “What? You weren't gonna say it.”

Ada smiled as Harley went through the door and into a long hallway at the end of which was a stairwell. When Ada shut the door behind her, she had the chess pieces which she let fall to the floor. 

“Now what the hell are we gonna do when we come across some old man playing chess in the park missing exactly those pieces?” said Harley. 

“Keep walking and hope he doesn't follow us or ask too many questions,” said Ada. 

The stairwell was a long one, moving up the equivalent of several floors before letting them out in the main hall of a small office building. It was the administration area for some kind of shipping area, the central feature of which was a massive freight elevator. 

“That's our ride,” said Ada. “Let's look for the controls.”

There were two shipping containers on the far end. What Harley had taken for a third container was actually a kind of cab. Harley, no stranger to operating equipment she wasn't authorized or welcome to use, figured the controls were in it. She climbed the short set of wire mesh stairs leading to the cab's door and saw there was blood on the knob. Blood on the steps, too, now that she looked harder. Not knowing what she'd find inside, she led with the .357.

She almost shot the child, thinking it was a zombie chowing down on somebody, but zombies, so far at least, didn't gasp while their eyes went wide in terror. The girl had to be around ten or twelve years old. The little blood spattered outfit she wore looked like a school uniform. Most of the blood it seeed had come from the cop lyin' on the bench. He had a wound in his torso that was bleeding like crazy despite attempts to stop it. 

The kid's mouth bobbed up and down. She clearly wanted to say “don't shoot,” but was scared witless by the sight of Harley. 

“What's the matter, kid, don't you like clowns? I'll make you a balloon animal later, promise. What's his problem? Was he bit?”

“N-no,” the girl stammered just as Ada came up behind Haley, nudging her into the room. “He was shot... I think... in the sewers. I tried to help him but he won't stop bleeding...”

Ada pulled a small knife from her pack and cut off the man's shirt. Harley rolled her eyes at the wound. It was certainly a bleeder, but nothing a pill-addicted veterinarian couldn't sew up. 

The cop groaned, his eyes fluttered. “Sherry...” he said. 

“Keep quiet, don't move,” said Ada. “You've been shot.”

“I know,” the cop said. “How... who?”

“My name is Ada. Ada Wong. This... this is Harley.”

“Harley. Harley Quin,” said Harley, taking a bow. 

“Name's... Leon,” he said. “This is Sherry.”

“Sherry...” said Ada.

“B-Birkin,” said the girl. “My mom and dad work in the labs below us. W-we can get out through there.”

“I know. My boyfriend, John, worked down there, too,” said Ada. 

“You must have come... from another direction,” said Leon.

“Quiet. We're going to find out how to start this thing and...”

The roar that cut her off made them all feel a sharp tug in their stomachs, as if some primordial alarm system had been tripped within them, telling the to abandon all pretense and flee. 

“Aaand I've peed myself,” said Harley, not looking forward to seeing whatever the hell had made that godawful noise. 

“The monster!” whimpered the girl. “It found me!”

All eyes were on Harley. She signed. “Fine, I'll go kill it. Runnin' low on bullets though... could use some help.”

Help came in the form of Ada picking up the shotgun that had been sitting beneath the bench. Leon groaned something to her and she went through his pockets to produce several shotgun shells. Harley looked them and the gun over as the thing outside bellowed again, sounding almost human. 

The shotgun was a Remington twelve gauge, the shells were magnums loaded with buckshot. Harley checked the chamber and magazine, found the thing full loaded. “Fine, everyone have fun in here without me,” she said.

She'd expected to find one or more tongue monsters creeping around, or maybe just a big ol' zombie. What she got instead was something out of a John Carpenter movie. 

Its lower half looked human, mostly for the ripped, filthy pair of blue-jeans that still clung to its swollen legs. Its only other human feature was the distorted face sliding down its chest, pushed off the neck by a new head, bone-white and bullet-shaped with a mess of teeth and tiny red eyes. It was all very disgusting, but what really had Harley's attention were its arms. Not the stumpy human ones slipping towards its hips, but the newer looking ones, mainly the big one on the right that ended in foot-long bone claws. 

“Nope,” said Harley, and turned to go back inside the cab.

The door didn't budge. 

“Hey! Open the damn door!” she said, pounding on it. 

The sound of moving pistons and gears filled the air along with the shrill honking of a siren. Harley felt the lift move under her feet.

“It's locked,” said Ada from the other side. “It locked automatically when I started the lift.”

Something landed on the roof of the cab with a heavy thud. Harley looked up to see the monster had leaped clear across the platform. She jumped away from the cab on instinct, tucked into a roll and came up on her feet ready to dodge again, only the monster wasn't interested in her. It shoved its clawed hand through the roof of the cab; the girl, Shirley, screamed. 

“What am I, chopped liver over here!?” Harley shouted as she peppered its backside with heavy buckshot. She may have been shooting a rhinoceros in the ass with paintballs for all the reaction she got. She fired again, moving closer, knowing that once the thing was done feasting on canned goods it would be after free-range meat.

Gunshots from inside the cab. The monster roared, more angry at the jagged hole it had torn in the roof than the bullets hitting its clawed arm. Harley moved closer and gave it several blasts from the shotgun, hoping to at least cripple its leg. The pellets buried themselves in its flesh, blood flowed in rivulets down the filthy, torn jeans. The monster didn't seem to care, then suddenly the bicep on its right arm tore open revealing a huge, tumescent eyeball that rolled around like a plastic googly eye before settling its focus on Harley.

Screw the legs, I'm gonna shoot 'im in the friggin' eye! Harley thought, pointing the shotgun and hearing it click empty when she pulled the trigger. “Aw, crap,” she said, fleeing to the other end of the platform as the monster pulled its mutated arm out of the hole in the cab's ceiling. 

She had one shell in the shotgun's magazine when the thing landed in front of her. It swiped at her with its long bone claws, a blow that would've taken her legs out had she not rolled over them. Harley was no Catwoman, but she could tumble when she needed to. She directed all of her fire into the big eye growing out of the thing's bicep for no other reason than she didn't like it lookin' at her. 

The shots came fast, the noise from the gun leaving Harley's ears a ringin'. She'd aimed well, grouped every shot right into that huge, twitching eyeball, and the results were stupendous. Yellow-white vitreous fluid came spewing out as the eye took on the shape of a deflated basketball. The monster roared through an aperture near the head and flailed, swiping madly at Harley with every limb it had. Out of shells, she threw the shotgun at it. The weapon bounced off its bony new-skull and landed on the platform behind it. 

Harley was ready to dump the rest of her .357 rounds into what she'd come to think of as its real head when it turned away from her and bent its legs as if about to collapse. Instead it leaped impossibly high into the air and caught hold of a pipe in the elevator shaft. Harley watched the monster vanish into the dark as the elevator platform continued to descend, deeper into the place where such monsters were born. 

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Once I had it on it's knees, I posted on his hip and jumped like... this," Harley ran up the side of the wall one, two steps and aimed an impressive kick at the head of a pretend enemy. "... and kicked him right in the frickin' skull!"

"I saw the fight from inside the cab," said Ada. "You dumped all of our ammo into it until it ran off."

"You're welcome," said Harley, bowing sarcastically.

They were in the underground laboratory's reception area, a brightly lit surprisingly clean place suspiciously free of zombies or hellish mutants. Thankfully the lab's medical bay, or "nurse's office" as Harley insisted it be called, was by the entrance. Ada and the little girl — Shirley or something —helped Leon limp inside and lie down on a cot. Ada then found proper bandages for him and did a fine job of dressing the bullet wound.

Harley leaned on her bat chewing her lip. She had two cylinders worth of .357 rounds left. Ada claimed to be down to her last magazine. Leon had only the shotgun shells, which Harley had fired into the mutant.

"Hmm... If I had me a lab full of zombies and monsters, you know what else I'd have? A room full of guns and bullets in case the damn things escaped. So, ya know, maybe you're imaginary boyfriend told ya where they keep all the boom-sticks?"

Ada's smile was more sly than innocent and she knew it. "There's no armory. Umbrella's higher-ups reasoned that the researchers would be less inclined to shoot their expensive toys to death if they lacked the means to do so."

"Corporate micromanagers strike again," said Harley.

"You're forgetting this is America, and you didn't see any metal detectors on the way in, did you? Plenty of researchers brought their own weapons from home, I'm sure we'll find something."

"Before something finds us," said Harley.

"Why don't I work on securing the way out of here while you search for weapons and ammunition? I've got a feeling we'll need them," said Ada.

"Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. That way you can go do whatever secret agent crap you're up to in private. Did I get that right? You're a secret agent? CIA, NSA? … Cadmus?"

Ada's smile turned upside down. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. And do me a favor and don't bring this up around the cop or the girl, I don't need it."

Said girl came out just then, looking pale and terrified. "He's sitting up," she said.

They followed the girl into the office, saw the cop sitting up on the cot. There was a red spot showing through the bandage Ada had applied to him. "I'm fine," he said.

"Only if you rest and let the wound clot," said Ada.

"Who the hell shot you, anyway?" said Harley.

"I don't know," said Leon. "I think it was a woman in a white coat, but it was dark. Sherry found me... she said she hadn't seen anyone else down there besides monsters."

"How'd you get into the sewers in the first place?" said Harley, glaring down at the girl.

The girl flinched and stood closer to Leon. "I... met some people. They found a secret room behind the police chief's desk."

"What happened to the people?" Ada said.

"I don't know," said the girl. "We were walking through a big tunnel and all this water came. I got swept away, down a hole."

"She said... tell them what you told me," said Leon, wincing. Some color had returned to his face.

Sherry nodded at him. "It was two women. One was dressed kinda like a cat."

"I wasn't sure what to think when she told me that," said Leon to Ada. "Then you two..."

Harley tightened her grip the Louisville Slugger, imagined how it would feel to whack Catwoman upside the head with it. "I'm gonna go look for guns and stuff," said Harley. "We'll meet back here in an hour or whatever."

She left Ada and Sherry to argue with Leon over whether he should be moving around or not. Haley didn't much care what happened Leon or any of them so long as Ada was alive and well enough to point the way out of the labs when the way opened. Though, she supposed it would be a shame if the kid got killed. Given all the girl had likely experienced, she'd no doubt grow up to be a very interesting person.

The narrow halls beyond the reception area were more along the lines of what Harley had been expecting from an underground zombie factory. Red emergency lights blazed above doorways, many of them locked. Harley was daydreaming about what sort of weirdo Sherry might turn out to be a five to ten yeas when she heard gentle moaning from around a corner.

The pitiful tone belonged to a lone zombie crouched in front of a mechanical door, pawing at it like a dog that a certain bad little girl had forgotten to take in for the night. There was something off about the zombie, that being it's complete lack of skin and a deep, cherry red musculature. Harley figured she could take it out without spending a bullet, and so she crept carefully down the hall, Louisville Slugger ready to swing for the fences. A few steps and the zombie noticed her, turning its head a near one-hundred-eighty degrees and letting out a wet hiss. What made her gasp and realize she'd really married the uncle on this one was the thing's eyes. Lidless, clear as headlights, they fixed on her with a famished intelligence bent on swimming in her guts.

The zombie came sprinting, clawed hands outstretched as if it wanted a great, big hug. Harley brought the bat down on top of the zombie's head. It kept on, barreling into her, knocking her to the floor. She rolled away from it, scrambled to her feet; it grabbed her by the ankle and she fell. Its teeth clamped down over her boot. Had she been wearing anything but her thick, leather curb-stompers she had no doubt those teeth would've broken through and infected her with whatever gawdawful bug the Umbrella lab geeks had cooked up. She kicked backward with her other leg, fast realizing she'd have to stomp the thing's head apart before it ever relaxed its jaws.

The way it had her pinned she doubted she could reach her revolver, or her bat, before it chewed through her boot or managed to sink its claws into her leather pants. She was about to opt for the gun, figuring she could at least blow the thing's head off after it infected her, when she heard the all-too familiar sound of a Taser being deployed.

Whatever hit her, it wasn't a Taser. Maybe the special model they used on meta-humans, but certainly not the friendly 50,000 volts Harley was used to. Every muscle in her body went rigid, her jaw clamped shut, and her brain just kinda frazzled out. When the white static cleared, she was being dragged down the hall by her legs and through the mechanical door.

"Harley! Harley! Wake up! Damnit..."

Harley was lifted in a fireman's carry and set down on a doctor's table under a bunch of lights and robotic arms. Her arms and legs felt like they weighed a ton each. She ached all over and was fairly sure she'd peed herself a bit. "The hell..."

A familiar face, filled concern, stared down at her. Harley looked up into Pamela Isley's green-tinted face and felt something in her stomach that had little to do with having her central nervous system blistered by what had felt like a phase-three power line shoved up her...

"Sorry I blasted you, I couldn't think of anything else to try... I wasn't even sure it would work on that... thing."

Harley rolled onto her side and was helped into a sitting position by Pamela, better known to her friends and enemies as Poison Ivy... or just Ivy for those in a hurry. Harley's eyes lingered over her old friend who was dressed in nothing but a white lab coat and lacy black panties. Ivy had always maintained that her skin was photosynthetic and so she needed it to be as exposed as possible, but Harley suspected Ivy just didn't like wearing pants.

"Thanks anyway," said Harley, looking around the room. In the middle was a cylindrical glass tank, high as the ceiling, filled with some kinda seaweed. Near it was the thing Ivy had used to zap her. The love-child of a Nerf gun and vacuum cleaner, it looked like a Taser for elephants.

"I'm glad you found your way here. I didn't think you'd come," said Ivy.

Harley's stomach felt full of ice cubes. She'd sussed it all out the moment she saw it was Ivy who'd zapped her. One didn't need a pair of bat pajamas to put it all together, but Harley supposed she aught to go through the motions for old time's sake.

"No, I wouldn't have," said Harley, looking around for her bat, realizing it was out in the hall. "I wouldn't have left Gotham for anyone except..." Her fingers slip around the handle of her revolver, resting ueasy in its holster.

Ivy smiled sheepishly, her green-tinted cheeks flushing pink. "I know... I know, Harley, and I'm sorry. I should never have tricked you. I wouldn't have done it had I known how bad things would get here. I thought you and I could... I don't know, take advantage of the chaos but I didn't think..."

Harley pulled the gun from its holster, liking the sound the steel made against the leather but taking no joy in the fear that widened Ivy's yellowish-green eyes. "And if he comes back to Gotham and finds me gone, what then, Pamela?"

Ivy backed away, her mind clearly on the stun gun she'd left lying too far out of reach. "Harley, you can't...Harley, we all saw it. We all saw the Joker die. We all saw Batman kill him!"

Harley saw Ivy's green-tinted lips trembling, just above the revolver's sight. The bullet would rip through them like warm Jell-O, smash through Ivy's teeth like heap ceramic tiles, and leave a hole in the back of her head the size of a softball and reveal once and for all if it was brains in that greenish skull or a buncha sunflower seeds.

The room shimmered as if Harley was looking at it through a pool of water. Fire, black chemical-scented smoke tearing at her eyes and lungs. Above, the Batman, the god damned Batman, was standin' up there, just wailin' on her Puddin's face, harder than she'd ever seen. She remembered now, remembered what Mr. J had said, how it would all end where it began, how he knew who was behind the cowl and what had happened in the alley...

Memories. Puddin' acting weird for weeks on end, saying he knew a secret and would never tell, not even his Pumpkin Pie, his Doll Face, that he wanted HIM to be the first one to hear it said by his enemy. More memories. The chemicals in the vat reaching their boiling point, exploding, everyone Mr. J had gathered running like hell for the exits, even Scarecrow that chickenshi...

"H-Harley, p-please..."

The smoke and flames shimmered. She saw the catwalk give way, saw both the bat and clown fall, her Puddin's slender frame limp like a rag doll.

Ivy's face, streaked with tears, the barrel of the .357 stuck between her teeth. Harley kept her thumb on the hammer as she pulled the trigger, letting it down slowly so the firing pin wouldn't hit the bullet's primer and hollow out Ivy's skull.

"Aw, I could never stay mad at you," said Harley, taking the gun from Ivy's mouth, reminding herself that no one had recovered Mr. J's body — forgetting how good The Chemical was at dissolving things like bodies when it was boiling hot.

"I'm sorry, Harley. I'm so glad you're here."

"Yeah? You know it's like a friggin' Gotham City Reunion. First I run into Catwoman, then the Riddler... I had to shoot poor Croc."

Ivy stood up. She'd been on her knees, begging for her life for who knew how long. "Riddler was hired by the company to test its absurd security systems. I didn't think he'd actually made it to the city before all hell had broken loose... Croc… he was hired to guard the entrance from the sewers. Let me guess, he started eating zombies and got infected by the T-virus?"

"Heh, heh, yeah, good ol' Croc," said Harley. "Hey, you didn't invite Catwoman, too, did you?"

Ivy shook her head and walked over to a computer terminal showing feeds from several security cameras. She clicked a few keys and blew up one of the feeds, revealing a black and white, grainy shot of what looked like an exploded greenhouse.

"If I had to guess, I'd say our feline fatale is here to steal a sample of the G-virus. Before all this mess, there was a similar incident at a lab in the mountains beneath an old mansion. I heard a rumor that someone sounding very much like Catwoman was slinking around there before all hell broke loose."

A thought occurred to Harley just then, one that filled her stomach with hot coals instead of ice.

"Catwoman... does she come off as... Asian to you?"

"What? No. This is no time for casual racism, we need to get out of here."

Convinced that Ada Wong was Catwoman's secret identity, Harley struggled to pay attention to Ivy as she went from one computer terminal to the next, doing computer things and muttering the way computer-people did.

"Umbrella has been courting me for a long time, actually," Ivy said, responding to questions Harley wasn't asking. "They made a pretty good offer. In exchange for a lot of money I'd get to grow plants that eat people. And I got to do just that, but it seems the real reason they wanted me was for my expertise in using gas. My plants weren't given the same respect as the other lines of bioweapons despite being vastly superior..."

"Hey, Ivy? Can ask you something? You, ah, didn't... ya know... cause alla this, did ya? I mean, I ain't judgin' or nuthin', but..."

"Me? No! From what I can tell, there was a personnel issue with one of the researchers, Birkin or somebody. The kind of personnel issue you solve with a heavily armed team of mercenaries. They broke in here one day, put the entire facility on lockdown, killed a few people, then went after Birkin. They took his G-virus, but not before he'd injected himself with a syringe full of it. Things went to hell, and the T-virus they had stored here somehow got out. spread by rats maybe."

Harley tapped the revolver against her thigh. Sick of this place, she wanted out. Forget Catwoman, forget Claire, she just wanted to go home to Gotham, draw herself a nice hot bath and maybe rob a bank after.

"The jerks I came down here with all seem to think there's a way outta the city through these here labs," said Harley.

"Yes, but there's a problem," said Ivy. "You see this door?" She pointed to a computer monitor fixed on what appeared to be a thick, steel wall, its status as a door indicated only by red block letters reading "Exit."

"That the way out?"

"It leads to a train platform. Since no one made it out of the labs before the lock-down, it should be there waiting for us."

"But of course the door is locked and the key is... ?"

Ivy smiled sheepishly again. "In a room beyond the lab's greenhouse..."

"That's full of giant, mutant..."

"... plants, yes," said Ivy. "They've become infected by the T-virus. I can't control or even communicate with them."

Harley held up her revolver and jostled her hip pouch making the spare bullets inside clatter dully against one another. "I'm gonna need like a weed-whacker or something, I'm running low on bullets and I think my baseball bat's about had it..."

"You won't need to kill them," said Ivy. "I've rigged the sprinkler system down there to deploy a certain chemical that will make them more, er, docile. It won't last long, so I'll watch you on the monitors until you get close then I'll use it. We can communicate through the PA system."

"Fair enough," said Harley, liking the idea of taking the only way out ahead of Catwoman and Claire. Those bitches could walk down the train tunnel on their own, as could Ada "Probably-Not-Catwoman" Wong. Cheryl and Leo could also go screw.

After Ivy gave her directions to the room she needed and a description of they key she was after — It was actually a compact disc that would reboot the lock-down program — Harley was back in the hallway. She picked up her Louisville Slugger and used it to cave in the head of the red zombie which had been stumbling around, unable to recover from the electrocution it had received earlier.

"Alrighty, time to go water Ivy's plants," said Harley, meaning to kill every single one she found, docile or not.

To be continued...


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"I'd better get an Achievement for this," Harley muttered, following the directions Ivy had given her to the greenhouse. The hallways absolutely were quite infested with all manner of things that wanted to eat Harley's greasepainted face. Naked, hairless zombies, their skin sloughing off in patches, roamed in large packs of six or more. The Louisville Slugger did the work.

Bonk! Clonk! Thwack! Whank!

"Ha! Wank..." said Harley, imaging how the noises made by wood against bone would be spelled. "Heh, heh. Wood against bone..."

She knew she was just about where she wanted to be when she saw the leaves. They were growing off vines that had crept down the hall, clinging to the walls and ceiling and carpeting the floor. They shuddered as she walked by them, as if they were responding to a gentle breeze; except there wasn't a breeze because they were indoors and underground, a fact not lost at all on Harley who unlike many violent criminals had an education.

The vegetation grew thicker, blocking the doors and windows into the observation chambers. The dim light in the hall was tinted a heavy green, the door to the greenhouse black with dense vines. "Ivy, I think I'm here," she said.

"Harley, you're there. I forgot to mention I don't have audio on my end," said Ivy over the intercom.

"I wish I didn't have it my end, either," said Harley, smiling and waving at the security camera above her head.

"Once you open that door, wait for me to activate the sprinklers," said Ivy, her voice muffled through the ivy-covered speakers.

Harley pulled clumps of vines away from the door, enough so she could reach the handle and crack the door open. Inside the greenhouse was full-on jungle times, a real Tarzan of the Apes kinda scene, fortunately one with a few narrow openings in the vines and leaves Harley could make her way through.

"The vines shouldn't hurt you, just... don't touch them too much," said Ivy. "I'm releasing the gas now."

The faint hiss of the sprinklers could be heard through the dense foliage, along with the frantic rustling of leaves. A strong, ammonia smell had Harley wrinkling her nose and squinting her eyes. "That should've done it," said Ivy.

Harley expected to see all the plants wilt and turn brown, like in a cartoon. Instead, nothing happened. Zilch, nada. If anything, the plants looked greener. "This had better work, Ivy, or you're gonna be a black-eyed Susan when I get back up there," she said, creeping through the greenhouse.

The vine covered table in the middle of the room left Harley with two paths, left and right. She went left and was only a little surprised when what she'd taken for a string of ivy in the corner got up and came wobbling towards her. It was a zombie, completely overtaken by a plant. Harley's bat against its skull sounded like a pile of fall leaves being kicked. The first blow took it down, the second, third, and fourth busted the skull to smithereens. The blood that came oozing out was thick and green-smelling. "Plants versus zombies, the eternal struggle," said Harley, stepping through a curtain of clear plastic sheets into a room brightly lit by overhead bulbs. The plants covered everything except the lights; Harley could still smell Ivy's weed-killer in the air and see where it had made the leaves and vines slick.

Five grow tables were between her and the office where Ivy said the disc would be. Harley saw the killer plants Ivy was worried about, strewn on the floor between the grow tables like piles of wet lawn clippings.

"This is gonna be easy," Harley said, walking confidently past the grown tables. "I'll just stroll past these plants here and not worry... aah!"

The piles of wet leaves and vines rattled and shook, rising up to stand as tall as a man. Were a human's arms might be were buds of flailing tendrils lined with hooked thorns. Where a human's head might be was a big red bud, the kind that opened to reveal four petals all lined with tooth-like thorns, ready to pull something wiggling and meaty into the plant's digestive chamber.

Harley jumped back to avoid being whipped by the tendrils and tripped over a vine that had snaked around behind her. She landed hard on her ass and saw the plants all moving toward her, slowly as they hadn't been designed too well. Harley took her time getting to her feet, not too worried about a bunch of shrubs even if they did have teeth. She got quite a bit more worried when nearest two plants began shaking violently and coughing as if bringing up a wad of phlegm. She'd seen enough monster movies to know what was coming and rolled out of the way behind a grow table just as a wash of putrid plant toxins splattered onto the floor where she'd been sitting. Smoke rose from the tile as the acid went to work eating its way through the floor.

"What the hell, Ivy!? I didn't order the side salad!"

"Harley! Get out of there!" Ivy shouted through the intercom. "The gas didn't work! It made them stronger!"

Harley called Ivy something foul as she crawled to the other side of the grow table only to have her escape blocked by another jet of plant acid spattered across the floor in front of her. She heard the spitting plants moving around the table, cutting off her escape routes. Soon they'd be on both sides of her, and she doubted she'd be able to avoid an acid bath.

She considered leaping over the grow tables, but since she liked having skin she went under them, ripping and pulling away the vines. When she reached the other side she heard something fall to the floor behind her. Turning to see what it was she first took the object for some kinda Miracle Grow dispenser, but the big orange flame drawn on the fuel tank made her squeal with delight.

"Harley! Harley, they're coming! Run! What are you doing? What is that? Is that...? No, Harley!"

All Harley had to do was light the pilot on the flamethrower, which she did using the Zippo lighter she kept in her pocket, and she was ready to cook. She held the flamethrower over the grow table and let 'er rip, squirting a jet of flaming fuel on the first plant that had assaulted her. The flames vaporized the water in the plant's body making it sound like a whistling tea kettle as it died. Its life ended with a loud, wet pop, hopefully its monster-plant-brain exploding.

Harley gave all the other plants the same treatment, listening for the telltale pops of a dead plant. When she was satisfied they were all dead, she broke from cover and ran across the room to where Ivy said the disc she wanted would be. She found it and left the greenhouse as fast as she could move, not liking at all Ivy's silence over the intercom. Harley liked even less the fact the sprinkler system appeared to have sprayed that noxious chemical crap over every inch of that section of the lab, not just the greenhouse.

But, what she liked least of all, as she made her way through a narrow room with a high ceiling, was the trio of tongue-monsters that leaped down from the rafters where they'd been hiding to land in front of her. They were bulkier than the ones Harley had met topside, their muscly hides a deep maroon color, their claws chipped and discolored. Whereas the others had skittered about wildly on ungainly limbs, these critters prowled in a far more deliberate manner.

One walked straight for her while the other two went wide to either side. Harley doused the closest one in liquid fire, ducked just as the tongue from the second snapped at her head. She doused the other two in flames, saw one leap away with just its leg burning. It clung to the wall and went clamoring upward as its body slowly immolated.

The one in the center, either by accident or some miracle of residual memory, had put itself out using the classic stop-drop-and-roll method. It came at Harley, slashing at her feet with its charred claws while she danced neatly away from it, avoiding having her Achilles tendons severed. She laughed as she poured more fire onto the beast, this time reducing it to a pile of writhing, burnt meat.

Harley tapped the flamethrower's fuel tank, a half-gallon jug that screwed into the frame. She heard a faint sloshing inside and considered going back to the greenhouse to look for more fuel. She decided against it, suspecting that the three tongue-monsters she'd just barbecued likely hadn't been there when she'd come through the first time, meaning they'd been on the hunt and set up an ambush. God only knew what might come after her ass if she didn't get a move on.

"Honey, I'm hoizzzzzttt!"

The moment Harley stepped through the door to Ivy's office she was hit in the ribs with the big Taser. Things got fuzzy after that. Ivy's voice... cold, clipped, pissed off. The plants, the goddamn plants. Poison Ivy and her God. Damned. Plants.

Harley sat up and groaned. Everything was sorer than before, but at least she hadn't peed this time. Dehydrated, she thought. Hungry, too. Been neglecting my self-care regimen.

She'd been left on the floor of the office like an old sack of potatoes. Tucked between her boobs was a piece of paper which she unfolded and read. "Dear Harley, You haven't changed a bit. You have no regard for me, or anything I care about. I'm sorry I dragged you into this, I should've left you to go slowly insane back in Gotham, alone. By the time you've picked yourself up off the floor I'll have used the disc and caught the last train out of Raccoon City. You can walk down the track on your own. I'd hurry, since I doubt the government, or Umbrella, will allow the city to remain un-nuked for much longer. Yours, Ivy."

Harley crumpled the letter. "I swear, Ivy, when I find you I'm gonna prune you like one of them little banzai trees. I'm gonna..."

The PA system let out an obnoxious honking noise followed by an announcement from the kind of robot voice designed specifically to announce the commencement of self-destruct sequences. "Self-destruct sequence has been activated. All personnel are to report to Platform B immediately. Self-destruct sequence has been activated. All personnel are to report to Platform B immediately...," and so on, stopping just before it got really annoying.

There was no countdown, but the PA system was playing a low-volume high-energy tune that greatly increased Harley's sense of urgency as she ran out of the office, hoping the multiple Tasings she'd received that evening hadn't scrambled her eggs so badly she wouldn't remember the way to the platform.

They hadn't, and she found the big EXIT door was open when she arrived. Beyond the threshold there was a room full of shipping containers and what looked like the top of a train. Ivy hadn't left yet. Harley's fantasies about what she'd soon be doing to Ivy as payback vanished when Catwoman and Claire came running in from another part of the lab. Covered in sweat, filth, and wounds they stopped and stared at Harley in disbelief.

"You again," said Catwoman, unfurling her whip.

"Me again! And it looks like we've got all we need for a barbecue!" Harley shouted, aiming the flamethrower at Catwoman.

She was about to cook the kitty when Claire raised the bright, shiny weapon she'd been carrying. Harley froze, more out of jealously than fear. Somehow the sweet little n00b had gotten her mitts on a grenade launcher, and judging from the way she held it she'd figured out how to use it.

"We don't have time for this!" Claire shouted. "Didn't you hear? This place is going to explode!"

"She's right," said Catwoman. "We need to find a way out."

Since Harley had little interest in being turned into a Picasso-Pollock crossover piece by a grenade, she shrugged and pointed to the open EXIT door. "Way ahead of ya. At least Ivy is. She's leavin' on that train parked back there without us

"Ivy? As in, Poison Ivy?"

"No, Ivy Parker. Come on, it's probably gonna take the three of us to calm her down... she's pissed at me again."

Catwoman wound her whip and wrinkled her nose. "You torched her mutant plants, didn't you?"

Harley looked sheepish as Leon, Sherry, and Ada came running in, all of them out of breath and looking far worse for wear. Leon walked on his own, but there was no blood in his face and his pupils were fully dilated, the effects of some stimulant most likely. Sherry clutched tightly the pendant around her neck, almost as tightly as she clutched Leon's hand. Ada had gotten the worst of it, sporting a white bandage around her head, arm, and leg.

"Run! Go!" Leon shouted.

"They sent a Tyrant!" Ada said. "It's an Umbrella bioweapon, more powerful than anything..."

The door behind them suddenly split in half and went flying across the floor. In stepped a nine-foot tall man wearing an olive-green trench coat. Harley thought he looked a little familiar, until she saw his eight-ball eyes and lipless mouth.

"I got this," Harley said, walking calmly over to the Tyrant and dousing it with fire. She watched it go up like an old couch left out on the curb the night before Halloween. "Ah, memories," she said, to everyone's intense confusion.

Someone had clearly been to the National Fire Protection Association's website (LINK BLOCKED) and learned basic fire safety protocols, for as the flames engulfed the creature, it calmly ripped its charred long coat off and threw it to the floor. Now naked, Harley immediately looked to see its bits. It had none, it was like a Ken doll or something except its skin was bone white and in the middle of its chest was a massive tumor, throbbing like a heart.

Eh, that probably is the heart, she thought as the thing raised its fists to the ceiling and let out a roar. The sound made Harley wonder about the other mutant, the one she'd fought on the lift. It probably wouldn't come up later, so she refocused on the monster in front of her; its right hand was changing, its three centermost fingers lengthening into sharp bone claws. It took long, heavy steps towards Harley, still wearing its heavy boots. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing, the damn thing looked so ridiculous.

"Shoulda left yer coat on, jackass!" Harley shouted, pointing the flamethrower right at the thing's pulsing heart. She pulled the trigger, heard the nozzle sputter and sizzle.

"Well Whadda ya know, outta gas... get to the chopper!" Harley shouted, running away as fast as she could, quickly outdistancing her wounded casual acquaintances.

A tall gate separated the loading floor from the train platform. Harley found Ivy standing in front of it, furiously typing digits into a keypad.

"Ivy!" shouted Harley. "You bitch, why I aughtta...'

Ivy looked over her shoulder, the last bit of color in her greenish face drained away, making her look like a wax person. "Harley, I can't get this gate open! The code isn't working!" said Ivy.

"Ivy! Open that door, hurry!" said Catwoman, who'd gone ahead of Claire and the others who were just now crowding the locked gate. Behind them the monster, seemingly aware its prey was trapped, plodded patiently toward them.

"She can't, the code don't work," said Harley. "Come on, everybody, let's shoot the hell out of that thing and hope it dies. Aim for that thing on its chest, I bet that's its weak spot."

The air filled with the sound of discharging firearms, Harley with her .357, Claire with her grenade launcher, and Ada with her pistol. Harley had been right about the monster's chest, it did not like being shot in the heart, not at all. It wobbled as if drunk, then took a knee. Claire's grenade rounds weren't doing as much damage as they'd all hoped. The rounds tore plenty of flesh, but no blood to speak of came oozing out of the ragged holes.

The monster still looked pretty stupid naked but for its boots. They all fought the urge to snicker a bit as it stood up and came plodding for them. Their mirth died when their guns clicked empty. The Tyrant bent its legs and broke into a charge. It went for Harley, probably mad she'd ruined its coat. It was a lot faster than it looked and it caught Harley off guard, nearly impaling her on a bone claw as she twirled through the air out of the way.

Harley landed on her Louisville Slugger.

"I always knew you'd be the one to save the day," she said, wincing as she rolled off the bat.

The Tyrant faced her again, about to charge. Harley grabbed the bat, knocked it on the floor twice. She spit. Keeping her eye on the ball of the Tyrant's shiny white kneecap. she jumped backward just in time to avoid the thing's deadly claw and swung away. The heavy ash wood of the Louisville Slugger connected solidly with mutant's flesh. It felt like a million bees had stung her in the hands, the bat shattering was like a clap of thunder.

Haley hopped around, clutching her agonized hands in her armpits. The Louisville Slugger lay in twelve pieces, the Tyrant's knee in one. Those standing by the locked gate looked to an increasingly flustered Poison Ivy for their salvation, all except Catwoman who used her whip to promptly climb over the barrier. She let the whip down so Sherry could follow. Next was Leon. Harley meant to run over and see if she could vault the gate on her own, but the Tyrant cut her off.

It was done making bull-rushes, now it came after Harley at a deliberate pace, unhindered by its barely wounded knee. Harley kept backing away from it, hoping she might be able to dart around. It got close enough to take a swipe at her. The attack was hard to doge, but avoided it, only to have her ankle snatched by the monster's smaller hand.

"Hey, hands off, bozo!" she shouted as she was hauled into the air by her foot and held wiggling like a caught trout. She saw what was about to happen and pulled herself up, narrowly avoiding the tip of the bone claw that would've unzipped her and left her guts to spill all over the floor.

It was only a matter of time, now, she thought. She only hoped someone would have the common decency to film her gruesome death and put it on YouTube.

BANG

Harley's ears filled with a shrill ringing; she felt like she'd just done a belly-flop from space into a pool full of vodka.

THUMP

She landed hard on the floor, dislocating her shoulder. Hello, flash-bang my old friend, she thought, wondering which asshole had thrown the grenade, and if the Tyrant was okay.

It wasn't. It bellowed quite loudly from its lipless mouth, furious over the blinding flash of light. When its vision cleared, its attention turned back to Harley, who'd only just finished pushing her shoulder back into its socket.

Something new fell to the floor between Harley and the Tyrant, something that didn't explode on impact to blind everyone in the room.

A rocket launcher.

Harley's head whipped around to see who'd thrown it. Not fast enough, all she saw was a shadow vanishing atop a shipping container.

"Mr. J!" she squealed, diving for the rocket launcher. The moment her hands were on the launcher she rolled into a crouch, aimed the business end of the weapon straight at the Tyrant's chest. "Sic semper tyrannis, bitch!"

She pulled the trigger mechanism, heard the fwoosh of the rocket, saw it sail across the short distance between her and the naked, boot-wearing mutant, saw the rocket penetrate the chest cavity... The rocket exploded, turning the top half of the Tyrant into a shower of poorly processed hamburger meat that showered the floor and shipping containers.

A loud, mechanical voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "Autodestruct sequence will commence in five minutes. All employees report to the lower platform immediately," it said.

Harley ran past the remains of the Tyrant, laughing at its boots, laughing because Mr. J was alive and in the middle of playing a joke, laughing because the gate had unlocked on its own and she wouldn't have to screw with it, laughing because she was able to board the train just as it pulled out of the station and there wasn't a damn thing those other assholes could do about it.

To be continued...


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

“Whoo-hoo, choo-choo, baby, yeah!” Harley Quinn shouted, entering the rattling train car where she was greeted by the tired, wasted eyes of her friends both old and new. “I blew that big bald asshole up with a rocket launcher!”

“Where were you hiding a rocket launcher?” said Catwoman, leaning against a steel pole. 

“In my clown car,” said Harley, slapping her own ass. “Nah, the Joker threw it to me.”

Catwoman and Ivy's eyes widened. Ada, Claire, and Sherry looked confused. Leon looked asleep. He'd lost a lot of blood. 

“Harley,” said Ivy. “Come on...”

Shaking with fury, Harley patted herself down and prayed to find a spare .357 shell for her revolver. Thinking she'd just pistol whip Ivy instead, she drew the gun from its holster. 

Catwoman cracked her whip, scaring the hell out of everybody in the train car. “That's enough! You say you saw the Joker, great. It looks like everyone got what they wanted, so let's call it a night and enjoy a nice, uneventful train ride out of this hell-hole.”

“My parents worked in the labs,” Sherry said under her breath. 

Catwoman blushed a bit as everyone in the car remained silent amid the clacking of the train over its rails. It was pitch black outside the car's tiny windows, revealing nothing about where they were or how far they'd gone. 

Harley holstered the empty revolver and leaned against one of the seats near the back. “So, how many G-virus samples are we holdin' here? Catwoman, I know you got yours. Ada, how'd you make out? Hey, Ivy, did you manage to sneak one out, too?”

Catwoman and Ada looked at each other sideways, reaching some sort of wordless agreement in silence. Ivy shook her head, looking tired. 

“Did we every figure out who shot the pig? I mean the rat-bastard cop? I mean this jackass?”

There, that did it. Claire, who'd been kneeling beside Leon, stood up along with Ada. Catwoman even came away from her pole, not losing her balance in the slightest despite the moving train. “Ivy, are you going to interfere?” said Catwoman. 

“No, go right ahead,” said Ivy. “I'll box up whatever is left and take it back to Gotham.”

A cold smile spread across Catwoman's lips as she extended the razor sharp claws on her gloves. Ada's face was a mask of cold menace, while Claire, clearly new to this particular brand of violence, looked equal parts pissed-off and scared. Even Sherry looked like she might offer a kick or two once the stupid clown-lady was down. 

THUMP.

The train lurched sideways, throwing them all off balance, even Catwoman. 

“What the hell was that?” Catwoman said. 

“Something hit the train,” said Ada. 

They all waited for a second THUMP, but none came as the train kept clacking down the track, perhaps a little slower than it had been. 

“Should we go check it out?” said Claire. 

“No, we should stay right here,” said Catwoman. “Harley can go check it out.”

“What!? Why me? I've had to do all the boss fights tonight, you jerks aught to take one.”

“Go, or we're going to kick the crap out of you,” said Catwoman. 

“Ivy, baby, help me out here!” Harley pleaded. Ivy crossed her arms and looked away while the others inched closer to Harley. 

“Fine, screw all of you. You'd better hope there's no self-destruct button on this train, 'cause if I find it I'm gonna stand on it!” Harley shouted, hitting the black button on the door behind her that made it slide open. 

The air in the dark tunnel was warm, even as it whipped through her hair and over her skin. Harley grabbed the first thing she saw that she could use as a weapon, a fire extinguisher. The spray might make for a good distraction, and she supposed it would work alright as a club if need be. 

I aughtta go back in there and spray those bitches with chemicals. That'll cool 'em down, she thought bitterly as she went through the train cars. Many were devoid of seats, built to move freight. She hoped one of the sections would be the dining car, since she hadn't eaten a damn thing all night. 

The next car she came to not only wasn't the dining car, but what it contained made her never want to eat again. “Well, there's your problem right there,” she said, beholding a blob-like monster that looked suspiciously like a gaping vagina lined with teeth. 

No joke, it was a massive blob of red and blue flesh with a slit down the center filled with teeth. At the top of the slit was a face, bone white and inhuman, flanked on either side by massive yellow eyeballs. The eyes rolled around, then focused on Harley as tentacles, each as thick as her leg, pulled the blob across the floor. 

“Well, goodbye!” said Harley. She turned to leave and discovered that the doors had been locking behind her the entire time. “Sonofaaaahhh!”

A tentacle latched onto her foot, pulling her off balance. She fell to the floor. Still clutching the fire extinguisher, she pulled the pin near the handle. “Here's sodium bicarbonate in yer eye!” she shouted, spraying the mutant's big yellow eyes, hoping the foam would act like Mace. 

It didn't. That, or the monster liked being Maced. It opened its gaping maw, eager to swallow Harley. 

BOOM

The train shook; the windows glowed. The labs had exploded, flushing the tunnel with super-heated air, pushing the train along like a bullet in the barrel of a rifle. The windows glowed brighter, started to melt. Harley's fire extinguisher was spent, but she didn't think it would do her much good anyhow given the entire car was about to be incinerated. 

The monster didn't appreciate the severity of any of this and opened its toothy vagina-shaped mouth wider to admit its anticipated meal. It was then that Harley decided to plagiarize Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Walt Disney Pictures, 2006). She hoped up onto one foot, the other still being held tightly by the tentacle, and dove straight into the fleshy maw, praying she'd at least bypass the teeth and suffocate inside its airless stomach before burning to death. If I'm lucky, there'll be a magical land inside there where I'll chill until it's time for the sequel, she thought. Just like in the movie. And I'll be paid billions of dollars, and...

She made it past the teeth and was welcomed by walls of hot flesh that stank of lab chemicals. She breathed as deeply as she could, figuring she might at least catch a buzz before she died. Outside the monster's GI tract, things were getting hot. Harley heard the woosh of the explosion overtake the train, felt it all come off the rails in a resounding shriek of tearing metal. 

It was kinda nice inside the mutant, she had to admit, like being inside the womb again or a big old whoopee cushion. She soon discovered that the mutant's insides were more habitable than she'd thought; if she twisted and turned enough there were all sorts of folds and stinking pockets full of air to inhale. She'd vomit later for sure, but right now it was what she needed. 

And then it got warm. Warmer. Hot! She heard the thing's flesh crackling and crisping, felt the warm walls shudder and twitch as nerve endings died. How many feet of mutant meat was between her and the all-consuming fire outside she didn't know, but she knew wasn't near enough to keep her from being cooked alive inside the world's shittiest turducken. 

“Oh, what a world, what a world, what a world,” she cried, gurgling the words through the foamy fluid that had filled the creature's internal cavities.

888

She woke up on the floor by the shipping container the Tyrant had thrown her against. Cracked ribs, definitely a concussion. The Tyrant stood on the other end of the loading floor roaring in triumph. It would take its time killing her. Of all the things its creators had stripped from it, memories, emotions, humanity, they'd left vindictiveness and a crude sense of cruelty. 

The rocket launcher fell from the ceiling, landing a few feet from Harley. Mr. J! She looked up to see him, that white face, that green hair, that absurd purple pinstripe suit... nothing but darkness. Long shadows dropped and slithered like a long cut of cloth, a cape. A bat cape draped over a bat-man. Batman!

She woke, this time for real. At least she'd never have to wonder what it would feel like to fall asleep inside a half-cooked chicken nugget. She took in a deep breath of warm air that smelled like a cadaver's armpit and crawled through oozing, dead mutant flesh towards an opening in the creature's hide. 

In the stale, dusty air of the train tunnel she felt born again. It was awful. Covered in drying slime, she stank like the floor of a poorly kept mortuary. Every step was a struggle but what kept her going was up ahead, maybe a mile or so off, was a tiny dot of light. Daylight. 

There would be people out there, all kinds of 'em, firemen, paramedics, bystanders... friggin' cops. That was fine. She'd broken out of prison before, she'd do it again. What she really wanted was one of those plain gray blankets and hot cocoa in a little white Styrofoam cup, the stuff they gave people at the end of action movies after all the asses had been kicked and cars and buildings blown up. She looked forward to having a nice long sit in the back of an ambulance, a little time for herself to not think about anything, like how the train had come apart, why Ivy had been such a bitch, and who'd really thrown her that rocket launcher in her battle with the Tyrant. 

Up ahead there were people. She could see the coming towards her. They moved like a SWAT team, quick little baby steps so as not to jostle the guns they had pointed at her. She probably looked like a zombie in the beams of their flashlights. Hopefully they were fairly new to the whole zombie scene and wouldn't plug her on sight. That hope got dashed when she saw the Umbrella Inc. logos on their yellow hazmat suits.

“You're gonna need a bigger boat,” she said as the team surrounded her.

Thwip. 

The dart hit her in the neck. She instinctively pulled it out only to have two more put into her chest and stomach. The tranquilizer worked fast and she collapsed. Unable to move her head or feel anything, she was only dimly aware they were dragging her along by her arms. 

“...tissue is heavily damaged...” 

“... explosion caused...”

“... not getting in. Report back and let's move to the extraction point...”

“...tag this one, we'll send her to the Rockfort facility.”

The Rockfort facility, Harley thought as she was taken out of the tunnel on stretcher and carried briefly under a blazing sun. Maybe I am gettin' my big-budget sequel after all.

The end.


End file.
